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FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

The Naked Emperor: A Bold Businessman Ignored at a Faux Summit

As talk turned to such stupid ideas as “cash for caulkers” at yesterday’s two hour and 15 minute photo op “jobs summit,” at least one businessman in attendance had the fortitude to answer the President’s question on why jobs aren’t being created:

Mr. Obama told the chief executives that he wanted to know: “What’s holding back business investment and how we can increase confidence and spur hiring? And if there are things that we’re doing here in Washington that are inhibiting you, then we want to know about it.”

He got a blunt answer from Fred P. Lampropoulos, founder and chief of Merit Medical Systems Inc., a medical device manufacturer in the Salt Lake City area. Mr. Lampropoulos said some in his discussion group agreed that businesses were uncertain about investment because “there’s such an aggressive legislative agenda that businesspeople don’t really know what they ought to do.”That uncertainty, he added, “is really what’s holding back the jobs.” [Emphasis added.]

Of course, like any good statist would, the President dismissed the honest truth.

The president acknowledged, “This is a legitimate concern,” one that he and his advisers had discussed before he took office.

But Mr. Obama said he had decided that “if we keep on putting off tough decisions about health care, about energy, about education, we’ll never get to the point where there’s a lot of appetite for that.”